Today I went shopping at Rainbow Grocery, this organic supermarket not too far from my house. I'd always heard that it was expensive, so I never bothered before. Also, it's one of those crazy San Francisco places where they take a nice thought and totally fuck it up. In this case, something went down like half of the worker-owned cooperative voted to ban products from Israel then the other half voted not to carry them from Palestine. It made the papers and lost them business. People in this town are retarded- but more on that next log.
In the white pages coupon section they had a 20% off coupon for anything in the store, so I decided it was time for me to brave the hippies and hit the place. I entered in the side door, picked up a cart, and found myself in the beauty section. I figured the beauty section of an organic supermarket would be one aisle, but it was around fifteen. I was walking and walking past aisles of organic bath salts and natural deodorants. There was a whole aisle of aromatherapy oils. Fans, you know how I feel about aromatherapy.
Then I got to the vitamin section, which was stocked fuller than a Walgreens. Powders and pills and drops went on for another several aisles. I was beginning to think I was in the Rainbow Grocery Annex, because I still couldn't see where the food started.
Finally, though, I did. I was in the frozen food section where life was good- there were all the regular things that I know and buy- fake hot dogs, fake bacon, fake sausage, fake eggs, etc. And they weren't even overpriced.
But then I wandered into the regular food sections and was completely lost. Everything was in plain boxes or little jars. I couldn't look at a section of food and be able to tell what the theme was- jelly or mustard or salsa? I thought I was in the canned vegetable aisle for about five minutes until I realized I was looking at baby food. The vegetables didn't seem to go in any order- there were three different areas where mushrooms were sold spread throughout the produce section. Everything was labelled by "organic" or "commercial" but not grouped by it, so you'd find four-dollar avocados next to the $1.05/pound tomatoes.
Then there was the bulk food section. Rows of beans and pastas and coffee and stuff. I didn't know what was in the bins on an entire wall until I saw one that said something about gluten. Granted, Okay, I don't really know what gluten is, but at least I've heard of it.
I felt not just confused, but really stupid. It was like shopping in an industrial farm equipment store where everything was labelled in Russian. I didn't know what anything was or what anything was used for. I mean, come on- it's food. Shouldn't it be obvious?
Fans, some people are not meant to be in organic grocery stores. I could get everything I needed in a 7-11 market if they replaced all the meat with fake meat. Actually, I can get everything in convenience stores anyway- they have spaghettios and beer and that's what I eat most of the time. From now on, I'll stick to what I know.